When I was a little girl, I mean very young, before I started the first grade, when I got a whipping from my mother for fighting with my brother or sisters, I would always go to a favorite place for me. This place was just over the fence at the corner of our cotton field. I would climb the fence and there was a small area of sand and water was always running across it. There was a small underground spring and that was where the water came from. When I look back, I realize that I was a deep thinker to be under 5 years of age. I noticed that as the water moved across the sand that small streams would leave the main stream and go their own way. Then some of them would return. I would think, “Is that the way life is?”

Just after dark I would always look up into the sky and watch all the stars come out. When I saw the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper, I would say to myself that I wished I could use the Little Dipper to fill the Big Dipper with love and happiness and then pour it out all over the world.

Now I am much, much older. I have lived in Conyers almost 40 years and have, as a volunteer with the American Cancer Society, transported many patients for chemo or radiation. I always asked each patient what would they do differently in their life if they could go back. Most of them would say, “Be a better person and try not to ever hurt anyone.”

Now, more than my thoughts as a 5-year-old, I would love to fill the Big Dipper with love and happiness and pour it out all over the world. Maybe then those who bully and hurt others would love themselves enough to stop bullying.